“Paradissolution” – Ritual Communion within the Spectator- Performer Frame in “Parallel”
Keywords:
Parallel, Dante, torture, guilt, empathy, nudity, gender performativity, queer.Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate the performative strategies employed by the authors of Parallel (2013), Sinkó Ferenc and Leta Popescu, in order to generate new forms of communication between artists (Lucia Mărneanu and kata-bodoki halmen) and spectators. The relationship between performers and spectators ranges from an initial recoil and fear to full empathy, achieved by means of traumatic narratives as well as through irony, humour and ”gender performativity”, to use Judith Butler’s terminology (Judith Butler, 2006). I constructed my discourse around the hypothesis according to which the communion between spectators and performers can be traced by following the pattern established by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy. I view Parallel as a journey that can be segmented in three stages, also explored by Dante throughout Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, implying the exposure of a tortured-torturous body, of nudity, a phase of relief and one of what I called “Paradissolution”.
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